A space for discussion about issues raised by the pervasiveness of the web.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Second Blog Post: On Corporate Tracking and Privacy

Lots of good blog posts in this first round!

For your second round, due by Wednesday, January 26th, address the following question:

This week, you read quite a bit about how companies track your activity online - your search terms, your "likes," your ad-clicks - as a way of creating very targeted advertising. Do you agree with this practice? Is it an invasion of privacy, even if your name isn't directly linked to your online activity? Or do you think this information is fair game?

Consider, in particular, that the internet services you use for "free" are largely financed through advertising, and that you probably prefer ads that are most relevant to you. Is it worth it to have your online activity used in this way, or are these companies getting to close to becoming a kind of "Big Brother"?

2 comments:

Like every coin has two sides, there are pros and cons of internet as well. As per my opinion, the pros outweigh cons in case of internet. Internet has been beneficial mainly because lots of information is available for free and with easy access. That itself should raise a flag for every user that whatever information you are providing on the internet can be acccesible to everyone. When it comes to the case of the email providers using the information we have in our emails for advertisements, I think it is fair deal. In this day and age when they say you have an email address for free, its common sense that everything comes with a price. Nothing is for free. Lot of us would be sceptical if to use an email address we would have to pay a price. Not eberyone would be too much excited about that. I like to think about internet as any other social issue. Just like in real world you save yourself and your family from burglers is by setting up a security system, teh same way if you know that on internet there are ways to protect your privacy, just go ahead and take those precautions. I would never send sensitive data like social security number or financial information on email addresses where the sites are not secured. The more knowledge you have anout the internet, the better you can save yoursefl from any identity thefts.